Conservative Bible Project....seems the bible's too liberal

Conserative Bible Project Cuts Out Liberal Passages

Lo and behold, the Bible has gotten too liberal, according to a group of conservatives. And it needs a little editing. That's the inspiration behind the Conservative Bible Project, which seeks to take the text back to its supposed right-wing roots.

Man...how conservative do you have to be to think the bible is too liberal LOL!

I can understand editing the bible to be more exact in it's translation compared to the original, but to change actual content, fundamentally altering it's meaning because it's considered too "liberal", is not only outrageous, but insane. People like this scare me.





[edit on 5-10-2009 by Connector]

reply to post by Connector

...but to change actual content, fundamentally altering it's meaning because it's considered too "liberal", is not only outrageous, but insane. People like this scare me.

Obviously, these people don't believe that the Bible is really God's word. (I, of course, am assuming that they would identify themselves as Christians.) If they did believe that, they would understand that the entire Bible is there for a reason. I wonder what they'd do with this verse; 2 Timothy 3.16:

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,...

It's silly that this group is doing this. It's clear, to me at least, that there is an agenda. I have a bad feeling too that this agenda may not be good at all. They must be wanting to somehow control people and taking out the "liberal" parts will make it easier or maybe they want to start a ruckus of some sort.

I wonder if they're taking out the parts about obeying government and "loving your neighbor". I, too, am scared.

I guess there is going to some more specifications on gays and gay marriage, since "it's in the Bible!" isn't a legitimate argument.

reply to post by Connector


Among the many changes they wish to make:

1. Replace the apostle Peter with Rush Limbaugh.
2. The parable of the rich man: it is easier for a conservative to go through the eye of a needle, than a for a liberal to reach the kingdom of God.
3. The commandment "thou shall not kill" will be replaced with "thou shall not kill fetuses; however, if your neighbor's country is rich in oil, feel free to bomb the crap out of them and their families." Also, Communists and Socialists are fair game.
4. The Golden Rule: Legislate unto others as you would believe they should live.
5. Eating shellfish and adultery is Ok (keep it under wraps, though!). Homosexuals - still not.

I think there might be a few more that I missed.

Anyway, this is silly. The Bible is already conservative, and this is just another group of people trying to weigh in and sway dogma to their favor. And they wonder why educated, non-fundamentalists don't take the Bible as complete fact.

ETA: They want to edit this like Wikipedia?! Wow, that makes my head hurt.

[edit on 5-10-2009 by Avenginggecko]

reply to post by octotom


Well - I looked up their site.

Conservative Bible Project

After giving it a look through I'm basically of the same mind as you on it and think they are using it to push an agenda.

Worse yet - using the project to change the meaning of verses as in the example below from their site.

At Luke 16:8, the NIV describes an enigmatic parable in which the "master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly." But is "shrewdly", which has connotations of dishonesty, the best term here? Being dishonestly shrewd is not an admirable trait.

The better conservative term, which became available only in 1851, is "resourceful". The manager was praised for being "resourceful", which is very different from dishonesty. Yet not even the ESV, which was published in 2001, contains a single use of the term "resourceful" in its entire translation of the Bible.

The problem is in the story the manager's "resorcefulness" as they call it was actually a dishonest act.

See what they did there?

So their gonna attempt to rewrite out liberal parts of a book that was translated (poorly) multiply times over the last thousand and a half years or so to make it more like it was/should have been?. The videos been dubbed a little to many times me thinks.

Hell id love to see there thoughts on the real, original, un-altered Genesis... it would have some right wing Christians having absolute fits.

To me the king james version is one of the best, but even it has large parts exercised, mis-translated and mis-interpreted due to confusion of meanings. At least I understand that and dont generate what I believe on a single source.

Some people and their actions are completely mind numbingly stupid.

ETA:

Conservative Bible Project Homepage


Thanks for the replies guys. I posted this because this is one that would fly under the radar of the MSN. I too, believe, there's an agenda here and it seems to be self evident as the outcome....providing justification of extreme right-wing views and ideology. The ironic thing is, to a fundamentalist...."the word of God is Law"....guess God's word isn't pious enough LOL!

As others have mentioned, I foresee changes in specific areas;

Homosexuality
Women's rights
Creation/Geneisis
Relationship to government
Abortion
and of course the biggy.....revelations....the rapture...I don't want to be left behind

Are there any Christians that have a view on this?


[edit on 5-10-2009 by Connector]

Originally posted by Avenginggecko
reply to post by Connector

 

4. The Golden Rule: Legislate unto others as you would believe they should live.
[edit on 5-10-2009 by Avenginggecko]

Funny. I like that a lot.

Actually their version of the golden rule reads: Do unto others before they do unto you.

[edit on 5-10-2009 by grover]

Hmm pardon the second post, but just realized something...

What the heck are they gonna do with the new testament?... I mean its about this really liberal guy right, who preaches forgiveness, tolerance, peace and didnt like banks to much.



[edit on 5-10-2009 by BigfootNZ]

reply to post by BigfootNZ


Jesus wasn't liberal, he was just a misunderstood conservative Of course due to the liberal bias in the translation that happened centuries ago lol.

This sort of reminds me of Animal Farm;

All animals are equal.
Revised to fit an agenda;
All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal then others.

At first I thought the authors were confusing the different definitions due to the fact 'liberal' and 'conservative' in terms of Christianity is not the same as 'liberal' and 'conservative' in the realm of politics.

When we say 'liberal Christianity' we don't mean Christians who support abortion, universal health care, and higher taxes to support social program. 'Liberal Christianity' consists of modern interpretations like Jesus wasn't really born of a virgin, Jesus didn't really die and rise again, here's no such thing as Hell- those are all just metaphors.

When we say 'conservative Christianity' (or 'fundamental' Christianity), we don't mean pro-life, low tax favoring, limited federal government Christians. We mean we believe the Bible teaches Jesus was literally born of a virgin, He literally died and resurrected, Hell is a physical, actual place, etc..

I thought this is what the project was referring to at first because it said things like affirming Hell as a literal place and what not. But apparently it really does mean a politically conservative Bible.

Free market parables? Eliminating the word 'government?' This doesn't look good at all. In fact, I think it's very sad. Politics can be interesting to keep tabs on or to engage in debates but for a Christian, it should not be the end and be all where we become so attached to our political views that we're actually willing to rework God's Word.

The Bible is neither conservative or liberal. It's a mix of both. In some instances it has very strict conservative principles (small government, self governance, no free hand-outs) and in other parts it is very liberal (don't be judgmental, help the less fortunate, pray for those in authority and government, environmental awareness, etc.).

If this article is accurate, it really irritates me these people are interpreting God's Word for something so temporal as politics.

I would like to point out that the link provided by Huffington Post does not work or should I say the article is deleted.

reply to post by AshleyD


Thank you for your insightful reply. I too, at first thought liberal and conservative in the the biblical sense, but after visiting their website, this does seem more politically motivated then theistic.

ETA:

grover:

Yes it seems the link in the Huffington article is dead. The Huffington article works for me? Here's the projects homepage:

Conservative Bible Project Homepage





[edit on 5-10-2009 by Connector]

[edit on 5-10-2009 by Connector]

Pathetic...

are they so obsessed with their conservative world view that they don't understand that doing what they propose is no different than what they are objecting to?

The Bible has been retranslated to fit an agenda so many times that it isn't funny.

Have no fear grover; if they deleted it, they did so after I pulled it up.

What caught my eye was this tidbit:

Yes, even scripture is not orthodox enough for the modern conservative. Not that it's the fault of the author(s), exactly. The group cites a few reasons why the Bible is too progressive: "Lack of precision in the original language ... lack of precision in modern language" and "translation bias in converting the original language to the modern one."
(emphasis mine)

Source: www.huffingtonpost.com... (assuming it's still there)

Lack of precision in ancient Hebrew? Hardly! I have used Strong's Concordance for many years now to verify what the KJV appears to say, and if there is one thing I have learned overall it is that ancient Hebrew was extremely precise and accurate! I have also learned that it is structured quite differently from modern English, and the translation into English is therefore difficult. Hence, we have poor translations (although I agree with BigfootNZ that the KJV is the closest we have despite errors in it as well).

The parable in the first part of Luke 16 is a difficult one to grasp. I'm not even going to say that I understand it completely. But I did look up one thing: the word "unjust: is translated from the Greek word adikia, which does indeed mean unjust or even criminal actions. (reference link: www.blueletterbible.org... ) For a self-professed Christian to change the word "unjust" to the word "resourceful" is plain and simple blasphemy!

I am with AshleyD on this one: some things are just plain wrong.

TheRedneck

I like the King James for the richness of the language though for some passages I prefer the Revised Standard edition.

As for retranslating to fit a conservative ideology is just plain idiotic...it would be like translating it to fit a liberal or capitalist agenda. The old and new testaments are records of their times and to try and fit them into our agenda is a total misrepresentation of that reality.

I cannot claim I have tried to read anything in a foreign language except wine labels...

but I do have a DVD from sacredtexts.org that has literally thousands of religious and spiritual/mystic writings and it does have the Bible in Aramaic Greek Latin and English.

[edit on 5-10-2009 by grover]

I'm sure most have viewed this already but, thought it is relevant to the topic.





What the hell is going on? Fundi Christian revisionist history/science? I know most Xtians don't agree with this stuff......it's TPTB using it as a not only a voting block, but a pseudo movement to manipulate/control and place fear in the right body politics's heart.

When your religious doctrine doesn't fit your agenda, maybe your agenda isn't really religious to begin with.

Not that the King James version hasn't undergone it's fair share of editing, but I have to say the mindset of medieval peoples tended to be more pious and devout than what we have today. This "conservative" revision is highly suspect and undoubtedly self-serving.

but I do have a DVD from sacredtexts.org that has literally thousands of religious and spiritual/mystic writings and it does have the Bible in Aramaic Greek Latin and English.

That's a great site isn't it? I found myself downloading so many docs from there I decided to buy the DVD to save myself all the trouble, it's saved me a few trips to the library.

reply to post by Choronzon

Excellent point...a star for you.